What is an account, and who does not have one?

Your wages come into it. Your rent goes out of it. Your card is linked to it, and so is Swish, the Swedish mobile payment app. A bank account is the point that almost all the money in an adult life passes through, and that is exactly why few people think about what it is, or about what happens to someone who does not have one.

The article starts with what a payment account is in the words of the law, and then moves to what the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority has counted: how many people are refused an account in Sweden and how many accounts are closed. Finally Sweden stands next to the world, where the account has been the big change of the past fifteen years.

What a payment account is, according to the law

The account and the basic features

In the episode on payments (S5:E1), the money in your account was described as a number at your bank, and a payment as an instruction to change that number. A payment account is the number the instructions are aimed at, and the law sets out what you must be able to do with it.⁷

Since 1 June 2017, consumers who live in Sweden, or anywhere else in the European Economic Area (EEA), have had the right to open a payment account with basic features at a Swedish bank.^{3, 7, 8} The rules implement an EU directive from 2014, the Payment Accounts Directive.⁹ The basic features are listed in the law itself: being able to open, hold and close the account, to pay in money, to withdraw cash from a cash machine or over the counter within the EEA, and to make payments within the EEA by debit card, direct debit and transfers at a terminal, over the counter and through the bank's online services.^{7, 8}

When the bank may refuse, and which banks are covered

The bank must decide on an application as soon as possible and at the latest within ten banking days of receiving a complete application.⁷ The right does not apply if an account would break the anti-money laundering law, or if there are special reasons, for example that the account can be assumed to be used for illegal purposes.^{7, 8, 10} Anyone refused must be told in writing, can turn to the bank's complaints officer and can take the matter to the National Board for Consumer Disputes.^{2, 7}

On 7 December 2022 the Swedish Parliament decided to extend the right so that, from 1 January 2023, it also applies to branches of foreign credit institutions in Sweden.^{4, 11} In the government bill, which the Committee on Finance backed, the government notes that someone without access to a payment account with basic features ends up excluded, and that access is therefore crucial for taking part in society.^{4, 11}

How many are refused in Sweden?

The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority, which checks that the banks follow the rules, was asked by the government in 2023 to report on how its supervision works.¹ The report came on 15 December 2023 and is based on a survey in which the authority asked a number of banks about the years 2020 to 2022.¹

The first finding is that statistics are missing.¹ Several banks could not say how many people had been refused an account during the first two years, and the authority writes that it is therefore hard to judge the exact number.¹ Based on the banks' answers, the authority estimates that a few thousand account applications from consumers are refused each year, at a fairly constant level over 2020 to 2022.¹ The authority adds that even if that may seem few, the consequence for each individual is often serious, because not having a payment account makes everyday tasks difficult.¹

By far the most common reason for refusing an account, according to the banks, is insufficient knowledge of the customer, something every bank in the survey mentions.¹ It can be about difficulty verifying the customer's identity, for example because the customer has no approved ID document, or about the customer having given incomplete details that were not completed despite reminders.¹ Five banks also mention past misconduct, and several mention suspected money laundering.¹

Accounts that are closed: 45,000, 54,000, 60,000

The figures and the most common reason

The second finding concerns the accounts that already exist. The number of payment accounts closed on the bank's initiative has risen: about 45,000 accounts in 2020, 54,000 in 2021 and 60,000 in 2022, according to the authority's survey.¹ That is a rise of about 30% in two years.¹ The figures cover all payment accounts the bank has closed, including those closed after the customer had been inactive for a long time.¹

The most common reason for closing an account, according to the banks, is problems getting adequate knowledge of the customer, including confirming the customer's identity.¹ It is often about the customer not answering the bank's questions in the regular follow-up, or answering them poorly.¹ So it is the same reason as for a refused account, but the other way round: the account existed, but the bank could no longer show that it knew who the customer was.

Two surveys, and the rules behind them

Both figures move, and the latest surveys point in opposite directions. In the survey for 2020 to 2022, which covered 24 banks, refusals were a few thousand a year and closures rose by about 30%.¹ So the two surveys cover different numbers of banks and should not be read as a single series.^{1, 6} In the follow-up the authority did of the four largest banks in 2025, refusals went up from 941 in 2023 to 1,618 in 2024, while the number of accounts closed on the bank's initiative fell from about 60,850 to 52,400.⁶ The authority itself writes that the banks' data have only improved in recent years, and that comparisons over time are therefore of limited value so far.⁶ Better data quality is given as a possible explanation for why refusals rose, and the closing of inactive accounts as a possible explanation for why closures fell.⁶ If your bank asks you who you are, it is wise to answer, because insufficient knowledge of the customer is the most common reason in both surveys, and it is often about the customer not answering.^{1, 6}

The same rules lie behind both figures. The anti-money laundering law requires the bank to know enough about its customer to be able to manage the risk, and without that knowledge the bank may neither open nor keep the account.¹⁰ About half of the banks in the survey said themselves that the two sets of rules clash, and the authority describes the conflict between them as problematic.¹ It is in that gap that the refused and closed accounts arise. At the same time the authority is clear that the anti-money laundering rules are risk based.¹ According to the authority, a bank that sees a higher risk should first consider whether the risk can be handled in another way, for example by limiting which services the customer gets, setting limits on amounts or following the transactions more closely, instead of refusing or closing the account.¹ The authority wants that assessment written into law.^{1, 6}

The world: from half to four in five

In Sweden, then, the question is who falls outside a system that almost everyone is part of. In the world it is the other way round: the account itself is the change that has happened.

Almost 80% of the world's adults have a financial account today, up from 50% in 2011, according to the World Bank's Global Findex survey, which is based on surveys in 141 countries and economies.^{5, 12} At the same time, about 1.3 billion adults in 2024 had no account at a financial institution or a mobile money service.^{5, 12} Of them, about 900 million own a mobile phone, and 530 million of those a smartphone.⁵

The differences between regions are large. In East Asia and the Pacific, 83% of adults have an account, in South Asia close to 80%, in Latin America about 70%, in sub-Saharan Africa 58%, up from 49% in 2021, and in the Middle East and North Africa 53%, up from 45% in 2021.⁵ India drives South Asia's level: 90% of both men and women have an account, while 65% own a mobile phone.⁵

The gap between women and men has narrowed. Globally, 77% of women have an account against 81% of men.^{5, 12} In low and middle income countries, account ownership among women almost doubled, from 37% in 2011 to 73% in 2024.⁵ And what the account is used for shows in two figures from the low and middle income countries. Three quarters of those who receive a payment from the government, and half of those who are paid wages by the private sector, get the money into an account.^{5, 12}

It is the same thing as the wages in your account, but counted from the other side. In Sweden both wages and bills assume an account, which is the whole reason the law gives a right to one. In many countries it only became possible in the past fifteen years, and often with the phone as the account.¹²

Two ways of counting that must not be mixed

The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority's figures are the banks' own data and estimates about accounts.¹ The World Bank's figures come from surveys asking people in 141 countries and economies whether they have an account.¹² The first counts accounts, the second counts people, and neither figure says how many people in Sweden have no account at all.^{1, 12} That figure is not in either source, so it is not here.

What to take away

The right to a payment account with basic features has applied in Sweden since 1 June 2017, extended to branches of foreign banks on 1 January 2023, with a decision within ten banking days.^{3, 4, 7} A few thousand applications were refused each year from 2020 to 2022, and about 45,000, 54,000 and 60,000 accounts were closed on the bank's initiative in those three years, most often because of insufficient knowledge of the customer.¹ The account is structural because wages, rent and digital payments assume it, and in the world the share of adults with an account has gone from half in 2011 to almost 80%, while 1.3 billion have none.^{5, 12} Follow the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority's follow-up of refused and closed payment accounts⁶ and the World Bank's Global Findex.¹²

The next episode is S5:E4 The New Middle Class, about how the middle class is measured and where the lines are drawn.

Education, not advice.